the attic and the basement

in my house there is room for light and shadow
as a little girl, i play in the attic and the basement
i imagine many things in the bare bones architect of my mind

inside myself the father and mother are making love
i ride the serpent and the dove
i crawl from the fecund root of my womb
to scratch with hungry fingers out of the
watery bloody sea sack that has born me
to emerge panting
fresh oxygen cutting my newfound lungs like knives
carving my heart open
to feel, to feel
i will not be numb
i will stay awake
through the pleasure and the pain
the love and the loss

raw
naked
i will not be ashamed of my form and flesh
that is spirit manifest
i sing, i hum, i howl
i wear all the masks
i tell the truth and i lie
and someday i will die
and the mother will desire me to be born to dance
in her creation in flesh again
and again i will say yes
fuck yes
to the invitation

What do butterflies remember?

what do butterflies remember?
i read about the orange black and white monarchs
who follow the same migration patterns every year
they land on the same tree in the same town
the same exact tree
scientist have not been able to identify
what makes that particular tree attract the butterflies
they have tested the trees
but can't find any markings or signatures to make "that" tree special

how do the butterflies remember?
when it was their ancestors who made the migration the year before
to travel, to mate, to lay eggs and die
and these new butterflies, hatch from those eggs
grow into caterpillars chewing on leaves til they grow fat
they build their own cocoons
and devour themselves inside
to emerge from their tomb in triumphant flash of fire
orange wings
to test the mettle of those fragile wings like steel knife blades
that cut through the sky
carving their way back into the collective minds memories
of their ancestors migration patterns
a need as invisible as hunger
following a map sleeping inside their DNA spiral until the exact moment it is called for
to plunge into the stream of blue sky
and fly and feed and fuck to guarantee the continuation of their species
like a great mysterious clockwork

is this not proof of some invisible pattern?
some great mind moving invisibly behind us all?
weaving through us all
as we travel through our lives a mystery to ourselves?

what do our bones remember?
in the stories of our ancestors?
what invisible maps are tattooed in our marrow
deeper than the minds memory
is the memory of the bones (white like teeth)

i think of my own generations
my father, my son
my mother, myself
our needs as invisible as hunger
our flight patterns,
part of a great invisible clock unwinding the time for us all

Paper boat captain

friday, sseptember 10
mentor, ohio

i am dancing
bobbing on the waves
of my little paper boat
that a child god made
the child god who adjusts the machinations of moon cycles and star traffic
in the freeways of the skies
that extend far beyond my eyes
and this whole world that my eyes can see is just a veil covering the bellydancer (who is the child gods wife-mother) breasts and thighs
undulating under the surface pattern of cleverly manipulated veils
in her dance of temptation
can i be content to be the witness to her dance?
can i relax and be the passenger in the child god's toy paper boat?
even when it springs a leak?
i stand at the helm like a fierce captain studying the horizon that always sings a siren song to me of urge and further into the unknown
bobbing in a small fountain that looks like the whole world to me
as far as my naked eye can see is water and endless sea
but from farther away, it's just one small fountain in gods plaza
which i like to imagine is something like a lively open cobblestone
square in italy with everyone chatting all lively and
sipping hot capuccinos and cold lemoncellos
captain, my captain
you are the whole world to me

Fast food and drive-thru sex

i am on my way to a tv station to do an interview on tantra. it is for a mainstream morning show. i will be sandwiched between segments for cooking bbq ribs and the local weather forecast. they will want to know about sex, what tantra has to do with sex. it is funny to me that i am somehow turning into a sex guru. i didn't intend it professionally, though i have dabbled in it liberally and recreationally since the first time i got drunk in high school and let a boy grope my breasts at a party i threw at my house when my parents went to japan. so maybe i have a liberal arts degree in sex guru-ship?

how to explain tantra to this audience?

when people ask me what tantra is on the street, i often smile and get a mystical and mischevious look and tell them it is difficult to explain. it has to be your own experience. but today is not a day for zen mystery school riddles. today is a day to muster my skills to speak in a way that meets the viewers.

who are my viewers?

i look out the car window with the freeway, trees, cars and a body of water speeding by. freeways are like the arteries of our society. all the cars zipping along the veins of the road like red and white blood cells. traffic. the outer world always reflects the inner world. these roads are the same as the freeways in my body.

we turn off the freeway. i look at the city peopled with tall, gray buildings, their glass tinted windows winking in the cold morning sun. i think, god help us be free.

tantra is about weaving together opposites.
flesh and spirit. sex and god. why do these feel so opposite, so far from each other?
why does it feel like we are fighting ourselves, like we have split personalities?
the flesh is the spirit and the spirit is the flesh
isn't that what jesus meant when he said, "my body the bread, my blood the wine"?
didn't he mean that these bodies, our human bodies, are the holy communion?
tantra means weaving, weaving the opposites to mend back to wholeness.
and beyond healing, there is the glimmer of transcendence rippling on the membrane-thin skin of reality.
as another prophet, jim morrison said, "break on through to the other side"

we have put god so far away from ourselves.
tantra is about reclaiming the sacredness of our bodies, including sex. sex has gotten a bad rap. tantra says that sex does not keep us from god, it brings us closer to god. it can be a beautiful act of worship.

where do we put our worship? where do we put our capacity for worshippfulness? it is in our nature as humans to worship and adore. so what objects have we raised like monoliths and pyramids? we stare at the one-glass-eyed cyclops god of tv. we let the churches of science gather dust, the largely unquestioned and ignored priests of science babble to each other in ceremonies only the initiated attend. meanwhile, the unwashed masses gather for evening services at the bars, strip clubs and happy ending massage parlors. we live in a world of religious non-believers. we worship money, fear, power and pornos. fast food and drive-thru sex. worship is a verb. it is an act. it is as simple as a shift in our attitude.

you do not need to go to the temple to worship, to pray. the temple is your own body. the temple is the warm sun making playful giggles on your skin. god is not so far away. just a slight adjustment, a recalibration to magic, can turn every moment into worship at the church of the life that is. don't stand so far from me friend. let us go worship the lover together. with our eyes and with our breath. with the grape clusters of your breasts woman. with the strong root of your tree man.

Click here to watch the TV Interview

Bordertown

tuesday, september 7
austin, texas

there is a bordertown
of skin
where our bodies are pressed together
in sweaty summer rainstorm with lightning
telegraphing strobing messages on the walls
awake, i listen to the rain like little feet
running outside

there is a bordertown
of skin
my bare belly and breasts pressed
to your giant rock of a back
as i curl my knees around your knees
like two apostrophes

two quotation marks
left hanging mid sentence
suspended in the syrup of sleep and disbelief
you used to be so angry
i used to insist on being so alone
you moved to another city
now i visit you in your bed

you are my lover still
you still move me so
and my tenderness
(like a new green shoot
of some persistent wild grass
pushing through the cracks)
surprises me again
and i am delighted
by my enduring innocence

there is a bordertown
of two lives
wrapped in ribcages
wrapped in bodies
our two lives run together for a moment
like the edges blurring between nations where cultures clash, blend and mend
mercenaries of love bleeding and slipping into each other,
our slick wildness filling the unpaved, lawless streets
we stay up all night laughing and dancing barefoot and drinking tequila to the music like
red and green tijuana colors melting together

in this lawless bordertown
there are no treaties here
except the ones we make now

The meaning of my dream

1.
i dreamed a strong dream a week ago
my son was being bitten by a black snake wrapped around his body
and then it bit me too
and i screamed, "i am going to die"
but my son was not afraid
and in the dream we both laid down and the snake bit us many times
while we were laughing

what is the meaning of this dream?
i remembered it when i woke up, and it disturbed me
i wrote it in my blog

two days later, i boarded a plane
and i began to feel uneasy
i began to feel a pain for my son
i remembered the dream, the snake, the biting
dear god, is my son alright?
i had not heard back from him for a few days
i began to worry

our last conversation he told me
"your son's not doing so good"
"my grandpa is dying"

i began to worry he might be in danger, my son
he might have gotten into some kind of the endless ways a teenager can get
into trouble
can get hurt
can hurt themselves
i shuddered
so little i can do
i am often far away
and at the brink of 18
he is often pushing me away

my mind raced with fears
someone had said to me that morning, "does it always have to be so intense?"
i wished it wasn't
i wished i felt calm and peaceful
but i was in hell on that plane ride

full of fear
anxiety
needing to have confirmation my son was ok

and when the plane landed i called his number and the message said
"we're sorry, this number is not accepting calls at this time"
what could that mean?
was he blocking my calls?
i texted his father to say i was worried

i got off the plane and collected my backpack with the worn out jesus patch
i dropped to my ass on the cool, marble floor in the airport and slumped against the wall
surrounded by my ragtag bags
most of what own these days as i travel more and more
i began to weep
openly
i did not care who saw me in the baggage claim
broke down

i heard the alarm my phone makes when i get a message
a text from my son's father:
"my father passed away, driving there now.
gabe was the one holding his hand when he took his last breath"

i felt the cooling rush of relief
not because the death of the grandfather
but because that feeling of death and physical danger i had been feeling around my son was true,
but he was safe.

these dreams, these dreams
these waking dreams of life

these webs of thoughts and dreams
when we love someone, we are haunted by them
we are inside of them
as they are inside of us

2.
what happens when the patriarch of a family dies?
2 sons, 2 daughters, 1 wife, 1 grandson
the one who has stood for what it means to be a man

when death comes in the fall,
like a scythe
gathering the harvest
of the indian summer

he said, a man is tough
and he would choose to sleep on the floor
to prove he didn't need much
or maybe because he had nothing to prove

who will fill the shoes
of what it means to be a man?

Wrestling with my angels

1.
Shattered Sanity Satori- aka Wrestling with my Angels

At the moment of awakening, everything is shattered
there is a story of a zen monk, who in the moment of his awakening heard a birds call
and could no longer tell if he was the bird or himself
it is disorienting, who am i?

another restless night, broken open
i feel so shattered
the bitter taste of my tears is on my tongue
should my heart rejoice unless i am burning?
it is so hot in my bedroom that i am sweating, kicking off my covers
the holy men say that thirst brings us closer to god
yearning makes us pray and prayer breaks the veil to ecstasy
well, by god i am thirsty and begging for mercy
there is no one left to cry to but the heavens
hear my cry, oh lord
all this burning is making everything i know die inside me
everywhere i look is the death, destruction, emptiness
my father, my father, why hast thou foresaken me?
if all my dreams are burning and dying inside this frail body
my bones are turned to ashes
then bring me a new dream
renew this charred, blackened earth
let me sing a new song
i am tired of hearing my own voice

Am I crazy?
Can we boil it all down
to psychosis?
Neurosis?
To storms in my brain?

I have a friend
who likes to explain my brain to me
he says it is a very interesting brain
firing off so many colors
well, fine then
you can explain my brain
but where does my brain come from?

Am I not made of star particles from the furthest galaxies?
And the photos from the hubble telescope
show rainbow colored clouds of stardust in the dark
container of limitless sky
when I close my eyes
I see these rainbow constellations
strobing and pulsing the light and color within itself
that is what is happening inside my brain
that is why I love tantra so much
it says, “nothing exists outside of you that does not exist inside of you”
science is only starting to be able to prove and comprehend
putting words to the mysteries

but tell me, what words do you have for the big, brown eyes
of a little brown boy
naked, playing at the water pump in a slum?
You would not dare drink that water
would you say his poverty breaks your heart and his naked joyful laughter
gives you hope?
there are no words for the mysteries of the contradiction of heartbreak and hope
in ordinary, everyday life

often, I wrestle with my angels, who morph into devils and back again
the deeper the darkness
the better the light show
and yet, this play is often painful
the ecstasy and the agony
the vast stretches of emptiness
razed by the fire of yearning
I have another friend who says
we walk in both worlds
it is disorienting

what does it mean to be shattered?
Perhaps a good shattering is what we need to see Reality
and yet, I fear the breaking

after the sundance
the medicine man who is always so strong
came stumbling out of his house
asking for another medicine man
they took him to the other side and brought him back
later that day, he was alright

what would you say if you could float through the stars
like you do when you sleep at night
wouldn't your mind be a little unhinged?
At the tremendousness of it all?

2.
Sons, Snakes and Poision

last night
in my dream
my son was holding a snake
a black snake
which became his friend and wrapped around his body
and I thought it was beautiful, but then I was afraid
I tried to take the snake away, but the snake bit me
and I began to wail
“I am going to die”
but my son did not get upset like I wanted him to
and then I stopped running with my wound
and I thought, If I relax
maybe the poison won't kill me
and then I laid down on the ground with my son and the snake
and the snake bit us both many times
and we laughed because we knew
we loved the snake
and the poison was becoming something else in our bodies
and then a group of people walked by like tourists
and the snake stood on it's tail hissing at them and the snakes body puffed up like a cloud
but the people just laughed and took pictures
and I told them if they did not respect and fear the snake they had to leave